Arrhythmia
by Iambeck
Summary: "That's not funny." Post 13x24 exploration fic.


A/N: So, this is the start of a hiatus post-13x24 fic. Megan is alive. I thought I'd start this off by prefacing that while this fic is labeled what it is, there are a lot of serious, devastating factors that go into Megan's return. I wasn't even too sure I was going to write this at all. This isn't a brush it under the carpet moment, nor is it something that can ever be explored lightly. I don't pretend to understand the depths of war, nor am I a PTSD or a trauma expert. I research, I do due diligence, but sometimes it's not enough. Please respect that while some will want things to work out in a certain way, or in a certain light, that it isn't rainbows and glitter and Megan's return is anything but easy for anyone involved. Leave your opinion, but be mindful. I will not blindly throw in a plot line to contrive happiness for anyone's purpose. Dance Party is being put on 'complete' and this will be a separate canon continuation.

* * *

 _"I want you to know_

 _That it doesn't matter_

 _Where we take this road_

 _Someone's gotta go."_

* * *

 **Arrhythmia**

 **Chapter One**

 _They've found Megan._

Ten years, three months and five days of muted despondency, obliterates.

He's felt nothing like this before.

It thrums and it thrums, the tachycardic beat in his chest as he tears down the I5, Des Moines a blur in his peripheral. It's reckless. Twenty over the limit. Downtown Seattle to Madigan, separated in union by fifty-four minutes. Turns out the grave he's dug for that man, the negligent, irresponsible asshole with a one-track Megan mind is nothing but a smokescreen.

 _She's alive._

* * *

It takes every fiber of his being not to throw a fist at the officers overseeing admittance. He tells them his plight, begs profusely. Ten years he tells them as if knowing the raw, biting pain of that decade would sway their decision.

It doesn't.

Turns out next of kin doesn't include a cheating ex-fiancé.

"This is fucked," he spits out, feet shifting endlessly as he struggles to tamp down the agitation and ire burning in his gut. It's something he's had to say to patients near endlessly and he gets it, deep down, underneath the fiery resentment of the irony he's found himself in. The adrenaline has him near ready to purge at the sheer devastation of it all.

Then he remembers Owen.

"You need to get, Hunt. Major Owen Hunt."

* * *

Owen doesn't come through for him.

The cafeteria has stopped charging him for coffee. That he doesn't mind because it's weak and watery, moderately ineffectual, but it gives him enough of a backbone to sit upright in the waiting room chair. He's spent a listless thirty-three hours waiting in knots.

Time has given him nothing but grief. With each passing minute the fermented decade of guilt festers and burns a hole so deep, he's terrified he's never going to be able to pull himself back.

There is a violent urge in him to claw his way to Megan until it kills him. He's willing to fight every red-tape barrier and official bare-handedly if it doesn't mean that he would be thrown out on his ass.

All he is now is fight.

He can be reckless, but the soldier still lives on in him.

 _He should have looked harder._

The hustle and bustle linger around him as he sits in the cafeteria, dredges of a cold coffee the only focal point he can contend with while others drink lattes, laugh and live their normalcies. He knows what this means for Megan. He doesn't need to be a psychiatric consultant to tell him what he already tortures himself with. The thought of ten years out there hostage is like sandpaper against his skin.

He wheezes again, smoke damage robbing him of breath.

He can't handle those thoughts.

He can't handle any of it, but he doesn't have a choice because his miracle dream has become a nightmare, and the coffee he's longed for has turned out to be as bitter as the gut-punching _reality_ of her return.

The war has known her longer now.

It swallows them.

* * *

"You're awake."

He hears Shepherd before he sees her, and it takes him a few moments to gather some function enough to greet her tepidly. He'd given into an hour of sleep back in the waiting area, more of an effort to numb the constant barrage of blame warring inside of him rather than because he needed it. He's spent many a night laying staring up at the roof of a tent only then to run off into bedlam and push through.

Though, this is _worse_ than bedlam.

"They're bringing her off sedation again in a few hours," Amelia tells him nervously, her fingers pinching at the cuffs of her jacket in that restless way of hers.

Shepherd isn't someone he dislikes by any means, but it's hard to see her there looking at him so damn piteously, knowing that he was supposed to be the courier of that information. He knows she knows that too. Megan was nothing but a story to her and he had no idea how things had gotten so fucked that he was the one begging for scraps on the outside while she so casually breezed in and took his place.

It was that ten blade alliance.

Ever since he's set foot in Washington he's become the second-hand gossip rag and it's quickly been locking him out on every front.

But she's there, and it's the first time he's felt a shred of hope in the rockiest landscape of his life.

She reaches down to grab a duffel he has no attachment to and offers it up to him. He furrows his brow in confusion when he realizes it's packed with his clothes and toiletries, all things from his apartment.

"Meredith," she explains.

That's another sting.

It's hard to admit in the tumult, especially when he doesn't want to feel _anything._ He hasn't wanted to spend one minute thinking about her in the chaos of Megan.

He'd said he was sorry and she'd given him that line.

They surrendered to it so blindly.

"Tell her thank you," he bites out, tamping down that layer of guilt so he could only feel Megan's. To feel it all would kill him. It _was_ killing him.

"She knows."

There's a palpable pause.

"You're a part of the village now."

* * *

After forty-two hours they come for him.

His stomach feels like it's in his shoes as the tile transitions from the terracotta overkill in the main waiting area, to the clean-cut white sterility of the psych ward. Nobody is saying anything and he hasn't dared to open his mouth for fear of hearing something that will send him over the edge.

It's just turn, after turn after turn.

He thinks that Shepherd has had a chance to talk to Owen, that his proclivity for rash outburst and blame has come to settle. The soured look on Hunt's face tells him everything he has to know when he's led into the family liaison room, that Hunt would rather be anywhere than locked in a small, windowless space with him.

He's confused.

There's a whole team, an amalgamation of army personnel and medics, all telling him things he doesn't quite let sink in. It's all coming in waves and the ringing in his ears is just so damn deafening he can't feel himself think properly.

 _She's said some things of concern._

 _Aggressive behaviors._

 _Periods of non-verbal communication._

 _Conceivable memory alteration._

"What do you mean she's said things," he snaps his head up at Mary Campbell, the one the boys on the base called _The Screwdriver_ , "who gives a shit what she's saying, is she okay?"

It's fucking subjective, a word that means nothing out there in the desert, but no one is giving him anything. The girl he'd fallen in love with in a basement cadaver lab was there, no less than twenty feet away and all he wanted to know was whether she was _there_ at all.

Amelia shoots him another pitying half-smile and he almost loses it, but he'll never forgive himself for taking it out on her when he knows all she's trying to do is keep it together. Not to mention Owen looks like he's half-ready to flatten him again, but he doesn't care too much there because half of him wants to give it right back to him for the shit he's pulled.

He _deserves_ to be here.

The tension is palpable. Nobody is quite looking at him and he feels like there's something more to the situation than they're letting on. Mary seems fascinated by him, another fucked up casualty for her to fix if she works it just right, he thinks. She placates him with sugar-coated terms that bunch together in a way that really gives him no information at all.

He's a specific guy and psychobabble is an enemy to his kind. His fingers knot into fists and he bears through the irritation of her passivity.

Then the glass shatters.

"We want you to visit her."

The room gives him the respect of silence. They wait.

It's a complete given. That's why he's here, right? That was the whole point of him being dragged into the fold after being left to stew in his own guilt for near enough two days?

He gives them a sign that he expected the ask, waves it off with a nod. It takes everything in his power not to _thank_ them. Oh, that burns. No one seems to understand when he scoffs to himself, looking a little less kept together than he had upon arrival.

"Where did they find her?" he finally gathers up the courage to ask against his better judgment. It's all moot now. For ten years she was out there when he was still looking and he hadn't looked hard enough. He'd told them he could feel it in his bones and time and time again they had refuted it, told him it was that cold comfort that buried the reality. He's wrecked himself over the thought.

He turns to Owen then.

"Where did they find her?" his tone is barely even.

It's aggressive, but he has to know. He has to know why he failed her at every hurdle. There has to be a reason that his every attempt to recover her was thwarted, to reasonably justify why the army dropped the search in '11. Why, when _every effort was made_ and all conclusions were drawn, she was declared dead.

Twelve years dedicated out there, tour extension after tour extension in consecutive reassignment so he could stay in the vicinity, pick up on any leads and investigate in his free time. He's killed lifelong friendships over that torment. One year out and the wrecking ball hits. It's an affront to every effort he claims to have made.

He's not ready when Hunt tells him.

"Ten miles out of Fallujah."

* * *

There would never be words for that.

* * *

He's a sight as his spine slides down the wall, the image of a broken man open and bleeding for everyone to see as he drops his head into his hands.

He wants so desperately to wake up.

He swears.

Profusely.

* * *

The crackling hiss of his beer is a balm as he rips the tab open and tips it back, a false sense of relief washing over him at the carbonation sliding down his throat. He knows it isn't a fix, but it'll numb something for sometime. That's all he needs.

He's found the cheapest motel in Lakewood, nothing nice or fancy, he doesn't feel like he deserves it when he thinks about the fact that Megan was left to rot in a basement in Fallujah.

If it weren't for the raging need to push it all down and forget the unforgettable he wouldn't be imbibing anything. He's played around with sobriety since he's left Jordan, but somehow it always seems to be the therapy he needs when Megan is at the helm of it all. Hell, he was the one who ended up being responsible for Shepherd's falling off the bandwagon.

It seems to follow him wherever he goes.

It reminds him of back then.

Days upon days spent with Megan under the Eastern sun, burning her pretty, pale skin in the heat as they danced on the tables in Camp Victory, sloshing cheap Sanabel over each other. Malty, hoppy stains drying as quickly as they made them.

Owen hadn't a clue what had happened back in Mosul.

Hadn't a clue that he spent his nights putting the pieces of his sister back together with whatever poison they could find at the Exchange. Curled up together in one bunk, the sounds of warfare thundering around them. The hair holding. The night sweats.

The memory fades as he drains the can and he laughs bitterly at the idea of it all.

It turns out Campbell is insistent on exercising his presence in some form of exposure therapy for Megan's initial observation period. Owen has given them Megan's profile and they're working through her connections until they find a correlation in her behaviors. There were three people Megan loved above all else in the world, and much to Owen's chagrin, he is their next pawn. They're giving her one more night, working the sedation out of her system since Owen's visit was so chaotic.

Evelyn doesn't even know yet.

It had always been the three of them.

 _I have my boys._

Two hours later and his six pack is finished.

He doesn't forget about the Jameson on the table.

* * *

 _Something doesn't feel right._

 _He's had a sixth sense for that sort of thing his whole life, it's what made him think he'd be good at this. A surgeon. A soldier. The air is muggy and humid, filling the desert void with a distinct heaviness that feels smothering. He hasn't seen or felt rain in eighteen months, and nights like these make him long for the Pacific North West where rain falls in abundance. The compound is silent, to a point he's never experienced in his time out there. Every now and then he catches glimpse of the guards on duty but in that moment, he feels completely alone._

 _It's unnerving._

 _He's almost nauseatingly fond of the chaos now. Almost._

 _He feels the sand slide as a body joins him on the dune, that intangible sixth letting him know it's Megan before he ever sees her auburn ringlets fade into view. As much as he can't shift that feeling, he turns to her with that reverent smile, reaching an arm out to curl around her shoulder so she has room to fold into him._

 _They don't have much time left together before he's being deployed to Baghdad again, but it's close to the end of his contract so he knows it's not going to be for long. They need more hands out in the center of the chaos and his specialty is far and few in between at the moment._

 _He reaches up, gently twists one of her curls in his fingers and give it a tug._

 _"You've never let it grow this long before."_

 _"Problem?" she glances up at him with a smile, a mass of freshly burned freckles bronzing the bridge of her nose. It makes him feel weak. Not that he'd give her any leverage over him by telling her that. He'll show it to her in other ways. Like there, in the way he slides his index finger across the plain of her cheek._

 _She's followed him out for a reason and he can see the hesitation in her eyes as she looks at him for something to say. They've been playing this song and dance for a while now but neither has had the courage to face it. Timing hasn't been kind on their part._

 _She takes a breath, and that feeling in his gut intensifies._

 _"I want to extend again."_

 _That is the last thing he was expecting to hear._

 _He doesn't know what to say to her._

* * *

He jerks awake as though he's been hit in the gut with a baseball bat.

His heart is thumping like he's back in the driver's seat, racing to Madigan on nothing but sleep deprivation and adrenaline. The power of his alcoholic depressant and the surge of the natural stimulant sends his nerves haywire. The buzz isn't so much a buzz anymore and his stomach rolls. This time, it's all too much.

It's projectile. It's everything he deserves. It's that vicious cycle he's been pulled from the surface by too many times to count. He really thinks he's better and that a decade has instilled a different coping mechanism in him, but when he leans over the porcelain again it's too stark of an image for him to deny that he's been the same way all along. The power it has over him has grown faster than he's grown to cope. He's choked by it, really. It's a surprise he hasn't just combusted.

All reason tells him not to pick up the phone, that's it's not fair on her in any way - especially at this godforsaken hour- but something overrules him and he's dialing her number before he has the time to talk himself out of it.

His stomach lurches when she answers groggily.

 _"Nathan?"_ her voice murmurs over the phone, weary, " _are you okay?"_

It's another layer of guilt and he thinks of the three kids who barely let her sleep as it is, but he's not thinking straight anymore.

It's driving him crazy.

"I don't know what to say to her."

 _"Oh, Nathan…"_

"I just…this isn't my dream, Mer. Fuck. That was something for me, it was…I don't know what it was but it's not this. What am I supposed to fucking _say_?" It tumbles out of him like the vomit he's expelled. It's messy and unfiltered.

She sighs gently, and there's a pause because in all reality neither of them really knows what to say. He's not blind to the feeling that he's rubbing something in her face, this second chance of his, and that he's whining about it to someone who would grab it with two fists and run.

There's a moment where their mutual breathing down the line soothes him, and words aren't necessarily needed, but he's suddenly this glutton for punishment and he needs her to give him something. She gets him. She gets _it_.

But there's also a part of her now, that brand new indelible piece where she doesn't.

That's a stark realization.

It's so unfair of him.

" _They're letting you see her?"_

 _"_ Tomorrow," he confirms.

He's always had visions of what that would look like, but the real life moment and reality is a whole different ballpark; romanticization is the safety blanket in those moments of hope in hopelessness.

" _Do you need anything? I sent Amelia with some things, but I know it's not enough…"_ she trails off, and he knows they're in this limbo territory. How did things change so quickly? He was used to it in Jordan and Iraq, mastered how to cope in Afghanistan, but he's gotten soft in Seattle, found some normalcy.

"I just need to know what to say," he exhales, wheezing a little again and she tells him to breathe over the line, coaxing him to take it slow, inhale, exhale…pull it together.

Every second the guilt mounts, but it's nice, something to take comfort in while his life spirals around him. It's the cadence of her voice and knowing that there was someone out there who cared whether he weathered through. He didn't need people. Didn't need anyone. Jordan, minus April was his one-man show. But that normalcy…

He's almost ready to let her go when he hears her fight for the right words, a hitch in her breath.

 _"You don't tell her anything Nathan,"_ her words finally pierce the silence, " _you listen to her, you let her have every moment and take nothing for yourself. It's not about what you say, no words can ever make things okay. It's how you show her you're there and that there's a constancy in her life that won't get ripped from under her again. Just be there. Be a constant."_

It's bittersweet advice.

He can't help but feel like a jerk as he wishes her goodnight, thanks her for the duffel and hangs up. Maybe if things were different, maybe if she'd gotten that drink with him in the beginning he could fathom her being there, by his side, like Shepherd for Owen.

He scoffs. It's not as though Owen or Shepherd have spent any time communicating since their marriage and it's another thorn in his side to think that warrants her a place where he should have been from the beginning.

Fucked is definitely the right word.

A fucked, bullshit, shit-storm of a situation.

He knows he's a jerk.

 _The Grinch._

* * *

He's brushed his teeth three times so no one can smell the distillery he's made of himself.

Sobriety comes after a few punishingly cold showers, a half liter of orange juice from the cafeteria and a handful of Tylenol. The clothes he's wearing are nondescript, no glaring labels or slogans, nothing off-putting or distracting. It's all down to the divine powers of luck and his earth-toned wardrobe that Meredith has managed to grab something Screwdriver approved. The scrubs he was languishing in for days were getting potent and Campbell wasn't too fond of the idea of presenting himself in surgical scrubs. They still aren't too sure what triggers she's formed, but plain and bland is a start.

The way Amelia looks at him when he finally emerges in the family room makes him more uncomfortable than he already is. He hadn't known she was in AA until recently, and it was a surefire tell that she knew what he'd spent his night doing. Shepherd was usually one who could look him in the eye. He doesn't really care what she judges him for though if he's being brutally honest.

Owen's fidgeting distracts him and he glances over at his once brother in arms from where he's slumped in his chair. He's tried not to read him much, tried not to form an opinion knowing that he's had first-hand contact with Megan. While he's been driven near mad, it doesn't help to discern anything from Hunt, master of concealment. Back in their poker days in Harvard and Camp Victory, he's learned a few tells and insights that belie some of his roughened exterior.

It doesn't bode well that he can't make eye contact.

His attention switches to Campbell as she enters the room and takes a seat across from him.

"Dr. Riggs," Mary balances her tone, a keel so even he knows she's leveling with him, "there are a few things we'd like to discuss concerning Megan's treatment before we allow a visitation. How're you feeling?"

"Peachy," he grumbles. His head is spinning and he can't completely blame it on Megan and Madigan anymore.

He's a physician. He has faith in other physicians…but he knows how The Screwdriver operates. She's fire in all the places you don't want it.

"Okay, then we'll get right to it," Campbell briskly moves on, "I'm sure you've gathered that this is an unimaginable case on all fronts."

It's laughable. He tries to hold it back.

"Firstly, I'd like to tell you my expectations of this partnership and where they lay. For this treatment plan to garner any success it is imperative that this is first and foremost strictly limited to the development of a consistent, rigorous exposure and cognitive processing therapy program. While the process is somewhat more digestible considering the nature of your training, I strongly advise that you allow my team to navigate this process of their own accord. Megan's experiences and longevity of exposure to trauma are… profound."

His hands clam against the arm rest, all of his insides clenching at the anxiety she instills in him. He's really trying not to let it affect him as _profound_ becomes a mantra in his head.

"There is no textbook method for a case so inconceivable as this. Early intervention is key, learning her re-experiencing, her arousal, avoidance and cognitive symptoms are the current focus. As Major Lewis informed you, Megan is already showcasing severe re-experiencing symptoms, some atypical of her experiences and others vastly removed."

Composure is something he has to fight for.

 _She may sometimes communicate in extremes._

 _There is a definitive distrust of army personnel._

 _A state of hyper-vigilance._

The information comes down like a ton of bricks.

After her disappearance it's the hardest thing he's ever had to hear.

When all is said and done, they ready him for visitation. It's the first time Owen speaks to him since he gets there.

"Don't mess this up."

* * *

 _She's alive._

It's the one comfort he can stomach.

* * *

 _"Nathan, we'll survive this, right?"_

 _He can't bear the glistening in her eyes._

 _"Of course we will."_

* * *

It thrums and it thrums, that tachycardic beat in his chest.

Every step drags like a lead weight on the soles of his shoes, making all movement feel as though he's walking in a dream state. The uneven arrhythmia blends into the chaos and it's a struggle to compensate when his lungs still feel like they're burning. He isn't sure whether the choking comes from the fire, or whether he's just losing himself to panic.

It takes another painstaking minute to breathe before he is ready. Ten years, he tells himself. He can wait one more minute for the sake of his sanity. He has a thought that he can wait forever, and that adds to the pile of thoughts he will never be able to forgive himself for.

The battle of forgiveness and blame will never quite surrender and he bows to that as they reach her room.

Ten years, three months, eight days and now all that separates them is five feet.

It feels like the longest distance yet.

Thirty-five seconds to compose.

And then he walks in.

* * *

Ten years, three months and eight days, resets to zero.


End file.
